


let's get out of this country

by storytellingape



Category: Girls (TV), Peter Rabbit (2018), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Kylux Adjacent Ship, M/M, Marijuana, Minor Character Death, Recreational Drug Use, Romantic Comedy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 15:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13720539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytellingape/pseuds/storytellingape
Summary: Living in the country is peaceful in short stretches but most of the time it’s completely shit. Then Adam Sackler moves in next door.





	let's get out of this country

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chifuyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chifuyu/gifts).
  * Inspired by [little shop around the corner](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14012061) by [storytellingape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytellingape/pseuds/storytellingape). 



> I have not yet seen Peter Rabbit because it doesn't come out here until March, I think? So the characterization for those of you who've seen it may be off. Also I have only seen the bare minimum of _Girls_ so make of this what you will. This is my little post-Valentine's gift for my pal Viv, who inspired EVERY BIT of this fic with her awesomeness. Love you, girl! ❤
> 
> TLDR; this is my love letter to Notting Hill (spot the references!) which I'd re-watched just recently (after Valentine's day). I'd intended this as crack but then it grew feelings lol. Title is from a song by Camera Obscura.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Living in the country is peaceful in short stretches but most of the time it’s completely shit. Thomas misses the city, the constant throb and hum of things constantly in motion. He misses the sound of traffic, the familiar urban smells choking the wintry air. Mostly he misses his old job at the toy shop, the well-worn routine of getting up at arse o’clock in the morning just to make the train to work and elbow his way with hardly any mercy through crowds gathered on the station platform. Nowadays, he spends his mornings in his dead uncle’s garden, staring off into space, holding a watering can. He still thinks about that day, wondering what would have happened if it hadn’t been for his little incident. If he hadn’t decimated thousands of pounds’ worth of company property. If his uncle had actually still been alive.

Regret is a waste of time but sometimes Thomas just can’t help himself. He obsesses; it’s what he does best. When he’d gotten the phone call informing him his uncle had passed, he was devastated beyond belief enough to have what HR had called “a little fit” at the shop. Months later and here he is living out in the country, in his uncle’s old cottage with the deep victorian terrace, saddled with property taxes and a garden he has no clue how to care for. 

The garden had thrived under his uncle’s eccentric treatment but now the cabbages are waterlogged beyond health and Thomas has a pest problem. At least that gives him something to do though. At least it takes away having to worry about what he plans to do with the rest of his life now that he’s been fired from a job he’d actually liked. At least — well. He isn’t dead, like his uncle. These days, however, the thought is barely a comfort.

*

The house next door is unoccupied for the better part of the year until one day, it isn’t. Thomas sees the moving van before he hears it, ambling along the rutted road and coughing out men in matching overalls lugging heavy-looking furniture. This lasts for about half a day: Thomas counts half a dozen sofas and chairs, thirteen lamps, and a rather large flatscreen television covered poorly in bubble wrap. He doesn’t meet his neighbour until well into the week when he’s on his knees by the flowerbeds, wearing a floppy straw hat. 

In addition to sweat, disgusting smears of sun cream are melting attractively down the tip of his nose, resulting in his face shining like a reflector. Thomas almost doesn’t hear his neighbour over the whir and clatter of the brush cutter, chalking it off to his imagination, and then he hears it again, a rather distinct and deep-voiced: “Hi.”

Thomas squints up at the haloed outline of a person leaning over the fence. Then that outline shifts into clear focus and Thomas frowns instinctively at his interloper who seems to be missing, of all things, a shirt. He’s tall and broad, with dark hair curling over his chin. The most offending part of it all is that he hasn’t got any shoes on, just a pair of jeans gone threadbare from too many washings, unbuttoned so that the waist hangs precariously around his hips. Thomas spies a faint trail of dark hair disappearing below this man’s belly button. All in all: just poor taste.

“Hello,” says Thomas uncertainly. 

The man peers down at him from the fence, grinning. “Are you okay down there?” he asks. He’s American, because, _of course_. Trust an American to wander into somebody else’s property without any shoes on. 

“Can I help you with something?” Thomas asks. If he forgets to keep the bite from his voice, it isn’t his fault; he hasn’t spoken to anyone in weeks since he’d popped into town for groceries and that had been to ask if the shop carried a certain brand of pesticide illegal in select countries. He’s read about it on the internet; they’re supposedly good at keeping rodents at bay.

“Yes,” the man says. “Well, no, not really. My name’s Adam and I just moved in next door. I guess we’re neighbours?”

“Right,” says Thomas. A beat of uncomfortable silence follows wherein Thomas watches a particularly fat rabbit scurry under the rosebush, making the most of his distraction, before he tears his gaze away to look at Adam again.

“Anyway, it was nice meeting you,” Adam says, rather awkwardly, also having watched the rabbit for some time. He’s obviously waiting for Thomas to introduce himself so Thomas stands to his feet and lifts his hat. He doesn’t extend a hand. For one, he’s still wearing gardening gloves and he doesn’t trust Adam. Also, he just can't be bothered. Who knows where that man's hand has been?

“Thomas,” Thomas says. 

“Tom?”

“No,” Thomas tilts his head at Adam, narrowing his eyes. “Just Thomas.”

“Sure,” Adam says. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Thomas replies. 

Adam gives him an unreadable look before smiling faintly and wandering back to his side of the lot. “I’ll see you around,” he says, or at least something to that effect. Thomas doesn’t hear him; he’s turned the brush cutter back on and slipped on his hat.

*

Adam is an absolute nightmare. 

Of course, Thomas should have seen this coming. Historically, he’s always had monumental bad luck. He inherits property worth millions of pounds but the upkeep alone is causing him to go bankrupt and all this after his last living relative dies of a heart attack, leaving Thomas with more problems than he knows what to do with. Then there’s the rabbit infestation which is in itself another story. Thomas already has a mild ulcer from living in the country for six months; he can’t afford having another thing to worry about on top of everything else. Recently, the shower drain has been clogged with a distressing amount of dark hair. It’s the stress; he’s going to go bald soon. Or worse: die. If he doesn’t slip a disc first attempting to move his uncle’s furniture around in the den.

Still, another problem materializes in the form of his neighbour _The American_ who has made it a point to wander around his front yard sans a shirt. They’ve been experiencing milder weather lately, a little bit early in the season, with clear skies more often than not and a fair bit of sunshine. This, of course, makes Adam think he can just go gallivanting around without a shirt on, practicing tai-chi or whatever it is he thinks he’s doing on the early mornings Thomas takes his tea in the garden. Sometimes he plays awful thumping music, which bleeds halfway across the lot and scares off the rabbits; other times he paces the yard, holding a voluminous stack of sheets in one hand, looking to all the world like he’s reading lines from a script, gesturing emphatically and addressing thin air. 

Then there are other times when he lounges about in a deck chair, in nothing but a pair of speedos, falling asleep with his mouth open, or with a book propped open across his face like he’s sunbathing in a sweltering Mediterranean summer. Thomas could always march over and demand he put clothes on seeing as he’s disrupting Thomas’ carefully curated early morning rituals (which is to say, going on a mad rampage to hunt down those rabbits before having a quiet sit down with a hot cup of tea and a saucer of Nice biscuits) but it’d be far too much effort, so instead he simply ignores it. 

This tactic works for about a full week until Adam crosses the lot again and asks him if he’s got any milk. Thomas almost doesn’t recognize Adam because he’s wearing a shirt. 

“Milk,” Thomas repeats, setting down his rake. 

“Yeah,” says Adam.

“What would you need milk for?”

“Drinking, obviously,” Adam says breezily. “I need milk to go with my cereal.“

“Right,” Thomas says eloquently. He makes the mistake of not telling Adam to wait a moment because then the man doesn’t stay put and in fact vaults over the fence to follow him all the way to his front door. 

“What are you doing?” Thomas hisses, vaguely alarmed.

“Following you inside? I wasn’t just going to stand there like an idiot.”

“Well,” Thomas says. “I was rather hoping you would.”

Adam laughs, and for a brief moment the sound makes something in Thomas stutter. “What?” he says, feeling both oddly threatened and self-conscious. He fiddles with his hat. 

Adam touches the brim lightly before giving it a friendly tap. “Listen,” he begins, already crowding Thomas in the den. “I’m reading Henry James, have you heard of this guy?”

“Yes, well,” says Thomas.

“Great! Then maybe you can help me with something.” Adam then launches into a story about how he’s working on a film which is essentially a remake and more or less a ripoff of _The American_ wherein he plays the eponymous hero intent on seducing an English heiress fallen on hard times. He’s an actor, _apparently_ , which makes sense in a weird way: Adam is over the top and loud, like every action is magnified and performed for an invisible audience. He lists off a number of films he’s been in, which could very well be titles of pornos and their associated spinoffs for all Thomas knows; he’s seen none of them though that could be because he hasn’t gone to the cinema in recent years. 

The old ones, now, there’s the ticket: black and white with un-remastered audio where orchestral music swells occasionally in the background and the actors all speak with the crispest elocution. His uncle would accuse him of being a hopeless romantic, though Thomas would deny it to his grave; it’s probably closer to the truth than he realizes as he longs for a much simpler time when narratives were straightforward and men didn’t have such weak chins and still had a penchant for dressing nicely. None of this… faffing about. And hardly any sequels.

Then as if in answer to this, Adam shows up again, crossing the lot in a dress shirt like he’s come from somewhere important. He looks…almost respectable, with his hair artfully swept in waves, and his jeans hugging the long lines of his legs. Adam cleans up nicely. It’s amazing what the right shirt can do, though his buttons look like they’re about to pop free any minute if he so much as flexed. 

“What,” Thomas says, through gritted teeth. “Are you doing here?”

Adam eyes the squirming rabbit Thomas is holding aloft by the scruff of its neck with notes of alarm. “Are you trying to murder that rabbit?”

“Mr Sackler—”

“I wanted to invite you over,” Adam interrupts him. “For dinner tonight. I’m cooking. Actually that’s not even remotely true. I suck at cooking anything that doesn’t come from a can. But my assistant bought some curry takeaway and I got Roman Holiday on Blu-ray, and I remembered how you said you liked a bit of the old stuff. That Gregory Peck seems like a great guy.”

“He is,” Thomas agrees. He’s had a bit of a crush on him growing up. It’s the strong chin. Thomas is weak for strong chins. “And?” he prompts.

“And would you like to come over for dinner, is my question,” Adam says. He coughs out a laugh when Thomas lets the rabbit go, watching it scuttle away with a mournful look.

“Why?” Thomas asks. He’s tempted to ask: _why now? What for?_ But holds off at the look of mild amusement in Adam’s face. Thomas’ own expression must be doing something complicated. He can feel the muscles in his cheek twitching, and he scrunches his nose to fight it.

“Well, why does anyone do anything?” Adam says, smooth as anything. “Because they want to. I’ll see you at 7. You can…” he points to Thomas’ hat. “Leave the hat at home.” He winks, and Thomas instinctively reaches for his hat. 

The interaction leaves Thomas feeling a bit faint and, glaring balefully at the sky, he wonders if the heat has anything to do with it. 

*

Thomas makes his appearance at the appointed time, wearing what he always wears: a comfortable jumper and an equally comfortable pair of jeans. He could have just said no to dinner, but rejecting Adam’s offer would probably merit another visit, then a series of others. Best to nip it in the bud right away. And besides, who can say no to curry? He rings the doorbell, and is in the midst of smoothing his hair when Adam answers it in a white t-shirt with the collar stretched out around the clavicles. He smiles, and there it is again: that little jolt that cuts cleanly through any other thought Thomas may have at the moment, that makes his breath feel a bit short. It’s rather disconcerting. He gives Adam a once-over without meaning to, noting again the lack of shoes. 

“Hey,” Adam says, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, his biceps bulging impressively. “I was just thinking about you.”

“ _What_ ,”Thomas says.

“Come in,” Adam laughs, waving the comment off.He leaves the door open, leading Thomas inside, and Thomas, he follows without thinking, shutting the door behind him. 

“Sorry about the mess. I’m only gonna be here awhile so I didn’t bother taking out most of my stuff.” Adam gives a box labeled PS4 GAMES a halfhearted kick, and then wends his way to the kitchen. The layout of the place is pretty much identical to Thomas’: everything is made of distressed wood and outfitted in comfortable seating and Thomas can see that Adam had elected to keep the original wainscoting. Thomas’ own living room is full of his uncle’s old things: family memorabilia cluttering the mantel, various bric-a brac and vases filled with bright patches of half-finished sewing, photographs of dead relatives hanging from the walls. Adam doesn’t seem to have any personal effects: just an enormous television sitting in a place of honour above the fireplace, and a lone hunter green couch crowded with cushions of varying sizes. 

There’s heaps of boxes in the den, left untended like sleeping animals, and most of the windows are bare, unscreened by curtains. In the hallway is a floor to ceiling bookshelf filled with the widest range of titles Thomas has ever seen, everything from _The Brothers Karamazov_ to Stephanie Meyer’s _New Moon._ Thomas runs his fingers along the worn spines. _The Corrections_ seems to have the most creases whereas _Ender’s Game_ appears to be the newest addition to the collection on account of how many of its pages remain in pristine condition. 

His attention flits back to the kitchen where Adam must be microwaving the curry. Thomas can smell it from the hall, and his stomach gurgles in response. He hadn’t had lunch that day, too busy having a mental breakdown over deciding what to wear to dinner. It shouldn’t be an issue; it’s just dinner and clothes are just clothes. In the end he’d opted for something rote: putting on the first jumper he’d tugged out of the closet. 

“In here,” Adam calls from the kitchen. He’s setting out plates on a quaint little breakfast nook, taking everything out of steaming containers. Thomas offers to help but Adam demotes him to the table. “You just stay there and uh, let me do all the work. You’re a guest. Sit down.”

“Right,” Thomas says. He watches Adam struggle for a bit with the naan before seating himself at the other end of the table. It’s a small one, built for four, with the legs painted a canary yellow and the top made entirely of marble. Something Thomas might have seen once at a shop in Kensington, expensive by the looks of it, seemingly out of place amid the old furnishings of this house with the crumbling Yorkshire stone and original pine board floors. Adam seems out of place himself, with his sheer size and awkward haircut, though Thomas can’t for the life of him place him anywhere that seemed fitting. Not in London, that’s for sure, or any other American city he could think of, so he decides to leave the thought for another day. 

None of the cutlery matches which shouldn’t be surprising. Discreetly, Thomas wipes the tines of his fork on the hem of his jumper when Adam’s attention is diverted. All in all, dinner is surprisingly enjoyable, if undercut by awkward glances and Adam regaling him with funny stories about life as an actor. In return, and feeling like he ought to anyway, Thomas tells himabout the rabbit infestation, the many lengths he has gone to make sure the vermin leaves his garden well alone; all he gets in response is a guffaw of laughter which he tries hard not to take to heart. It is rather _silly_ , in hindsight, to set traps along the perimeter of his garden. Adam is right: anyone can walk into them and injure themselves. 

After dinner and the plates have been put away, they migrate to the living room with godawful beers and a bowl of cheddar popcorn that smells a lot like feet. Adam hugs the bowl to his chest, sitting with his legs folded underneath him, light from the television screen bathing his face in glossy flashes. All the other lights are off, as if highlighting how fraught with potential the whole situation is, or just simply innocuous. Adam is quiet, completely absorbed in the film, and from an angle he looks almost handsome. 

From time to time Thomas can’t help but recite some of Gregory Peck’s lines under his breath. He finishes off his beer, careful not to let his lips touch the rim, resolutely trying not to glance over his shoulder at Adam. Adam with the big nose and even bigger ears, whose knee is touching Thomas’ thigh. Adam whose hands seem too large for the bottle of beer in his grip. Whose pale mouth is as soft during the day time as it is in the dark. 

There are bad ideas and then there’s this — whatever this is. Thomas knows he’ll keep feeling awful unless he does something about it, kill it before it can sprout legs, his main tactic to solve any problem, next to willfully ignoring it until it goes away which never seems to work and has him constantly circling back to tactic number one.

Adam turns to him after the movie, eyes dark in the shadows of the living room and asks, “Can I walk you back to your place?”

Thomas almost laughs. It would be cruel to, he knows, and yet he can feel the urge to do so tickling the back of his throat. He can walk himself back, he wants to say, but what comes out instead is a soft-voiced, “Yes. All right.” 

It must be the beer, or the exhaustion, or the giddy feeling still sitting in his chest after watching a good solid hour of Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn falling in love in Rome. Or better yet a heady mix of all three.

Adam walks him back to his house, as promised, throwing a leather jacket on to stave off the evening chill. He’s unusually quiet, keeping his hands stuffed inside the pockets of his jacket and his head ducked down. Thomas can hear crickets chirping, the trill of evening birds, sounds that used to terrify him on his first month in the country. He hated it here, then, the leathery scent of cow dung carried by the wind from the nearby farms, the people from the shops in town, asking him if he’s doing all right. And he hates it, still. All of it. He wants to leave.

It must be later than he’d anticipated because he can’t seem to stop yawning. Thomas is glad he had the foresight to keep his living room lights on because the moon barely provides any sort of illumination. The dozen bulbs he’d set up on a wire in the garden are on too, glowing faintly in the gloaming. 

When Thomas reaches the little white gate that he’d installed himself with a lock, he turns to face Adam, and is almost bowled over by how close he’s standing. 

“I wondered about you,” Adam says softly. “Living all alone in that big house. Do you ever get lonely?”

“What?” Thomas says, completely taken aback. Then his tone morphs, as it does when he’s feeling defensive. “I’m sorry?”

“I know you almost never leave,” Adam continues. “And that you spend a helluva lot of time in your garden.”

“Let’s not presume to know me,” Thomas says, already unable to keep the irritation from his voice. 

Adam seems to cotton on because his expression changes and he takes a step back and then another that puts at least a foot of distance between them. “I didn’t mean — Thomas. Forget it. It’s stupid,” he says, sniffing out a rueful laugh. Then he flits a glance at Thomas again, like he’s on the verge of saying something before thinking the better of it and walking away. Thomas gets the strange feeling that he’s missed something important. 

Still, when he grips the front door by its handle, he can’t help but say over his shoulder, “Thank you for the lovely evening.” Really, there’s no point. His voice doesn’t carry and Adam is already long gone. 

*

Life goes on afterwards. There’s always an afterwards, is the thing, and Thomas is beginning to realize how anti-climactic it all is. Adam doesn’t invite him over for dinner again, though occasionally he comes round to systematically borrow a number of Thomas’ garden tools without ever returning them: Thomas’ pruning shears, his lawn mower, at one point, his rake. Thomas realizes he’s missing his watering can one morning when has to use a teapot as a replacement. 

He marches over to Adam’s, intent on demanding he return his things. He’s about to ring the door when Adam throws it open without warning in a white shirt and track bottoms, one side of his cheek dented where he must have slept on it. His hair is sticking up at the back. He looks like he’s just rolled out of bed, barefoot and rumpled, the beginnings of stubble scraping his jaw.

Adam blinks at him lazily, clutching a thermos to his chest. “Hey you,” he hums. He smiles a sleep-laced smile. “I was just about to ask if you knew how to get wine stains out of leather.”

Thomas fights the urge to roll his eyes, his scalp prickling as a residual effect. 

“What time is it?” Adam continues, hiding a yawn behind a fist. “What are you doing here? Out of sugar?”

“No — you. I’m here to reclaim my lawn mower. And my rake, and a number of other things that you’ve failed to return over the course of the week.” He taps his foot, raising his eyebrows, and then crosses his arms for maximum effect. 

“Yeah.” Adam has the gall to look sheepish. “I keep meaning to return them. I guess I forgot. I usually have an assistant who does these kinds of things for me, but it’s supposed to be character building or something having me fend for myself. I’m like, grounded in the interim. For causing a scene at the SAG afterparty.” 

Thomas sighs. “Yes, well,” he says, and blinks. “There’s a shop in town where you can buy all these things for yourself and if you mention my name they may er, even give you a discount.”

“A discount,” Adam breathes. “Wow.”

“What?” Thomas says, and then again when Adam continues to stare: “ _What_.”

“Nothing, you just… never cease to surprise me that’s all,” Adam laughs. 

“I don’t know what that means.”

Adam smiles, softly this time, the expression pinching the corners of his eyes. “Better to just take it at face value. Anyway, if you’re not doing anything later, could you drive me to the place that sells the stuff?”

“The stuff,” Thomas repeats blankly.

“Yeah,” Adam affirms. “Driving European cars still scares the shit out of me and I haven’t been in town since moving here last month; I don’t know where anything is. I could get lost or shivved in an alley, you never know. Better to employ the help of a local, don’t you think?”

Thomas falters a little. “No one gets shivved ,” he says. “Not in these parts.”

“Good.” Adam claps him on the shoulder, squeezing it in pulses. “I’ll see you then. After lunch?”

“Wait,” Thomas says, just as Adam’s phone starts going off in his pocket. Adam scoops it out with a free hand mid-ring, smiling at Thomas before turning away to take the call. 

*

The jeep hasn’t been washed in months. Thomas throws a tarp over the clutter in the back and then walks over to Adam’s to ring the doorbell. He’s just getting ready, it seems, throwing a jacket over a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Thomas glimpses his forearms, paler than he’d ever thought, shades lighter than the skin below his elbows. His hair he doesn’t bother with: wearing it in a messy wave around his face. He completes the look with a pair of sunglasses as if it isn’t an overcast day the colour of newsprint. 

When Thomas asks, Adam tells him it’s to deflect attention. He isn’t as popular overseas but you never know when someone’s about to take your picture.

They walk to the jeep in relative silence, but as soon as Thomas turns the ignition on, Adam starts fiddling with the knobs on the radio, playing warbly staticky music and singing off-key. 

Thomas swats at his wrist and turns the blasted thing off. “Don’t,” he warns. “I don’t like music.”

“Is there anything you do like?” Adam challenges.

Thomas gives him a look. Black and white movies, he doesn’t say. The model train set he’d had as a child before it was destroyed in a fire. Dunking Nice biscuits into his tea at the end of a long day, watching the crumbs melt and gather at the bottom of the cup. The smell of a freshly laundered shirt because it reminds him of his mum. The thought of owning a toy shop one day; he’d been saving for that his entire adult life when his uncle had died. 

People look at Thomas and assume all sorts of things, that he dresses nicely so he must be really fussy and uptight (he is but only to a certain extent), that he loves working in customer service so he must love people (he doesn’t, some days he wishes to punch everyone including their mother) but really, Thomas loves children though he can’t imagine having any of his own, adopted or not. Children are pure, and honest. Adults fuck you over and can’t be trusted. 

“Hunting rabbits,” he settles on because this is, of course, true. He hates those rabbits. They give him a headache even on good days when they keep themselves out of sight.

“Wow, intense.” Adam says it with a laugh which lessens the impact. 

In town, Thomas shows him to the shops, the hardware first and then the old gardening center where he’d bought most of his tools. Adam follows dutifully behind him, making a running commentary that fades into white noise in the background and that Thomas eventually starts to appreciate. Adam picks things up and puts them back on the shelves, asks about the use of this and that while boggling at the price tags but obediently hands over his credit card after Thomas holds out an expectant hand at the counter. They amass quite the hefty bill, leaving the shops laden with several bags which Adam hoists over the back of the jeep with no trouble at all, each in quick succession including a brand new lawn mower, fancier than Thomas’ own with everything short of a portable stove.

It’s late when they finish, ticking off everything in Adam’s shopping list which Thomas had made him pen on the drive to town, which explains the barely legible handwriting resembling a primary school student’s. Adam coaxes him to stay in town for dinner, and wanders into Old Nelly’s, the only pub that serves cheese toasties with their tap. Thomas has only been in there twice, the first time when he’d driven into town to ask for directions, then again on the night his uncle was buried, decimating pint after pint until old Nelly himself or Nelly JR had to lug him to the back room for a sit-down after he’d gotten sick all over himself. What he likes most about this place is its authenticity, none of the replicated blandness that seems to pervade most pubs in London, everything impervious to change: the sawdust floors, the dimly-lit interiors, the walls crowded with portraits and old photographs, covering the gaudy floral wallpaper, the long narrow counter top scarred with indelible marks from everything including a stray bullet to a hunting knife if the barkeep is to believed. Then there’s the generous pour.

Adam finds a booth in the back, just by the window which look out into the empty sidewalk outside. It looks like it’s started to rain; lines of it fall like tinsel on the ground, cutting through headlights of passing cars. Adam grabs them a pint each and then orders food: a plate full of piping hot…breakfast — fried eggs, sausage links, black pudding, several strips of bacon with a side of mushrooms, baked beans, some toastand half a fried tomato for what he calls the “full British” experience. 

“It’s called a fry up,” Thomas tells him, the muscle in his cheek beginning to twitch. “Why are you eating breakfast at…” He checks his watch. “Eight o’clock at night?”

“It must be 8 in the morning somewhere,” Adam says. “Isn’t there a saying?”

Thomas doesn’t deign this with a response. His food arrives, a forlorn-looking salad with a side of soggy chips. Adam makes no comment though Thomas can already tell by the twinkle in his eye that he has something to say and is only barely resisting the urge to say it. The bell above the door tinkles in greeting each time a new patron comes barreling into the pub and he barely jumps out of his skin in surprise anymore. 

Thomas squints at the light outside, softened by rainfall on the windows, already missing his quiet little corner in the study, his plate of biscuits. 

“This is nice,”Adam says eventually, halfway into his Guinness. If it had been anything else, Thomas would have left him already. “You come here often? I swear that sounded less like a pickup line in my head.”

“I’m not in town very often,” Thomas tells him. He fiddles with the paper napkin in his lap, just to have something to do with his hands. He doesn’t take well to any sort of scrutiny, especially when made by handsome men. Not that he finds Adam particularly appealing; he just happens to be sitting…really close, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, his eyes never leaving Thomas’ face. 

If they’d met months ago in London, back when Thomas still had his job, Thomas could’ve looked him straight in the eye — _would’ve —_ and sneered at all his jokes before leaving him in the dust, panting at his heels. But that feels like a different time now, a different life, one that he can never return to; he had everything in his grasp then, and all it took to upend all of it was a moment of weakness. He still berates himself for that day in the shop, for crying like a child after delivering his uncle’s eulogy. His uncle had been like a father to him, taking him in after his mum had died, paying for Eton, then university.

“It’s the people, isn’t it?” Adam continues, pivoting Thomas’ attention back to him. “I noticed you’re not very…friendly.”

Thomas looks at him, meeting his gaze. “Thank you for noticing,” he says dryly. 

“It’s charming in a strange way!” Adam protests. “I kind of like it. You know,I saw you for the first time the night I moved in. You were cleaning your little garden shed. And you had the funniest — you sprayed something in your eye and were dancing around like a crazy person, hopping from foot to foot. I wanted to help you but you made it clear from the barbed wire that probably that wasn’t the best idea. You keep people out, and keep yourself in.”

“Remarkable insight coming from a total stranger who doesn’t know me at all.”

“I swear there’s a point to this,” Adam promises, sounding embarrassed. “I’m just hard-pressed to remember it now. Anyway, maybe I’ll figure it out eventually. Maybe you’re not as mysterious as you’d like to think.”

“I’ve never considered myself mysterious,” Thomas says. “ _At all_.”

Adam smiles again, leaving the conversation at a stand still. Thomas wonders how one person can be both infuriating and charming all at once. He wants to slap the look off Adam’s face but at the same time, do something drastic and stupid he knows he’ll only regret. He takes a sip of his pint, wiping the rim with a paper napkin. He mentally counts to ten before he starts finishing the rest of his salad. 

The drive back home is quiet, punctuated from time to time by the crunch of gravel under the tires and the rumble of cars passing in the opposite direction, the tinny music issued from Adam’s earbuds. When Thomas chances a glance at the passenger seat, he sees Adam with his head tipped back, the strong line of his throat pale under the weak evening light, covered with a smattering of dark hair. He’s tapping out a rhythm on his knee with his fingertips, like he’s playing piano, middle finger, forefinger, thumb, then back again, bobbing his head to the music on his iPhone. Something popular probably. He sounds like he’s rapping under his breath.

Finally, the drive ends and Thomas parks the jeep at the end of his driveway, helping Adam ferry his shopping to his front door. It takes them two trips, and then Adam is pushing the lawn mower across the grassy lot that divides their properties, giving Thomas an irreverent two-fingered salute as soon as he reaches his gate. “Hey,” he calls out from his front yard, hands around his mouth. “Tonight was great. _You_ were great in particular. But you probably already know I think that. Goodnight Thomas.” He has the audacity to wave. “I’ll see you.”

“ _What_ ,” Thomas says blandly, and watches as Adam shuts the front door.He stays there for a long while, not doing anything, just standing by the gate before stepping inside the house and leaning against the closed door for a minute or two, fighting off the inexplicable rush that settles in his chest like an achy heady thing he wants to cup in his hands like gold. He can’t help but liken the feeling to the end of a long beautiful dream, the longer he tries to hold onto it, the more it tries to slip away from him. 

Thomas closes his eyes, opens them again, shaking himself out of this strange mood. Then he heads for the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea.

*

Adam drags him jogging one morning, walking up to Thomas’ front door and demanding he come out. He’s dressed in running shorts and a grey hoodie, and is already hopping from foot to foot in an effort to coax himself into wakefulness. He tugs at Thomas’ hand as soon as Thomas gets the door, Thomas who is rubbing sleep from his eyes and blinking dumbly at Adam in a fluffy bathrobe, too out of it to realize he’d stepped into a pair of fuzzy slippers which he only wears in private. 

“Come on, jog with me,” Adam is saying. “You probably need the exercise more than I do. I mean look at you: you’re all soft in the middle.” He gives Thomas’ stomach a friendly pat though before Thomas can swat at him in response, or beat him bloody with the rake leaning against the wall, he’s able to take a step back, then another, increasing the distance between them to a less lethal range. 

“I’m going to murder you in your sleep,” Thomas promises, but the effect is lost when he has to stifle a big yawn. 

“It’ll be good for your back pain, come on,” Adam says. He holds out a hand but Thomas doesn’t take it.

Half an hour later and they’re jogging along a deserted road, still empty of people and cars at this hour. The air is chillier than usual, seeping into Thomas’ shirt, and making gooseflesh rise up the length of his arms and down the sides of his legs. They’ve been jogging for about forty minutes — well Adam has at least; Thomas has sort of given up and simply started walking briskly, taking breaks every five minutes to calm the pounding of his heart. He thinks he has a cramp in his side but he isn’t too sure. The sun has risen a moment ago, so it isn’t too dark to feel unsafe though Thomas knows for certain he’s living in one of the safest villages in Northern England. There’s hardly any crime in these parts, save for petty thefts by pre-pubescent hooligans, shoplifting cornettos off the corner shop.

Thomas slows to a stop when they reach the bend, clutching his knees and wiping sweat off his face with the hem of his shirt. The ache in his legs has reached immobilizing levels of discomfort. He seats himself on the ground, and then, because he’s feeling irritable has a complete lie-down in the middle of the road, arms and legs spread like a starfish.The ground is cool to the touch, damp with dew. 

“What the fuck,” Adam says, running over to him. “Get up, Thomas. Get up!”

“I’m resting,” Thomas says, closing his eyes and folding his hand across his chest. “Can’t you see?”

“You can rest when you’ve finished a circuit.”

“No,” Thomas says, stubborn as ever. He blinks one eye open and glowers at Adam. “No,” he repeats firmly. Then he proceeds to kick off his shoes and hurls one across the road.

There’s a long pause before Adam goes to collect Thomas’ shoe, sitting on his haunches to slip it back onto Thomas sock-covered feet. There’s a hole in the big toe, Thomas notices, worn through completely by wear, and Thomas wiggles his toes when Adam cups his foot almost reverently in his palm. 

“You know what they say about feet,” Adam says, gripping Thomas’ other shoe in his hand, propping Thomas’ other foot in his lap. 

Thomas blinks at him. “No, what? What do they say?” 

“Big feet…” Adam says. “Big shoes?”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Thomas tells him. He watches Adam tie his laces for him, clumsy with his knots but it gets the job done. He’s got big hands, big enough to circle the entirety of Thomas’ ankle. Thomas imagines his hands on other parts of him, like his wrists, and has to fight off the strange feeling that sweeps over him like a wave. He knows this feeling is dangerous but he also knows that all he needs to do is to ride it out and it’ll go away on his own. At least eventually. 

“Are you really tired?” Adam asks.

Thomas shrugs, pushing the hair out of his face. He’d left the pomade off this morning. Nobody ran wearing pomade in their fucking hair. “I’m not made for this,” he settles on. 

“For exercise?” Adam says, giving him a disbelieving look. 

Thomas snorts. “Why do you think I wear jumpers all the time?” 

Adam doesn’t probe further, accepting this as an excuse. He tugs Thomas to his feet, yanking him up, up by the wrists, before proceeding to, without warning, lift him off his feet in the literal sense. He then carries Thomas like a sack of grain over one meaty shoulder, in a flawless imitation of a fireman’s carry and Thomas, he starts screaming his head off. He delivers a successive series of smacks to Adam’s shoulder but it’s like hitting a brick wall: Thomas only succeeds in hurting himself. It makes Adam laugh because he’s a prick. A massive prick. 

“Sackler, please put me down. This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous. I can walk, you know. I haven’t lost functionality of my lower extremities.”

Adam pinches him on the bum.

“What the fuck,” Thomas hisses. “ _What the fuck_.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being soft,” Adam says, as if he hadn’t just pinched Thomas in the bum. “I like it,” he continues, “I mean I like you. Though you should really have someone take a look at that back problem if it’s bothering you so much.”

“Right,” Thomas says. No bum-pinching follows after the first attempt much to his relief though that doesn’t mean he squirms any less, hyper-alert of any sudden movements. 

“Will you make me breakfast?” Adam asks, apropos of nothing. He’s started to walk, which means Thomas is treated to a view of the road at a very jarring angle, his stomach lurching in surprise with every step. He’s getting a migraine and it’s only what, seven thirty probably. People are barely awake at this hour; _he’s_ barely awake at this hour. 

Over Adam’s shoulder, Thomas gets a whiff of the shampoo in his hair, fruity and laced with clean sweat. His back is broad under Thomas’ hands, shifting with every movement. And it’s warm where his arms are wrapped around Thomas’ knees.

“I’ll make you breakfast but only if you put me down,” Thomas says, “I think I’m about to get horribly sick.”

“All right,” Adam laughs. “ _All right._ ”

He lets Thomas down as promised, righting him with his grip steady on Thomas’ forearms when Thomas pitches forward into gravity. Then of course he rubs a thumb across Thomas’ cheekbone, at a spot below his left eyelid, erasing a smear of dirt with the passing glance of a touch. Thomas feels it anyway, and it knifes through him like a jolt of electricity, making his spine sing and his toes curl. He swallows, then swallows again at the look that passes Adam’s face that dissipates all in the space of the next minute. 

“Got it,” Adam says, grinning, wiping his hand against his hoodie. He starts walking backwards, before breaking into a jog, calling out to Thomas once he’s nothing more than a speck in the distance, yelling for him to catch up.

*

After: Adam makes it a habit to come over frequently. Most days he’s a general nuisance, constantly hungry and eating all of Thomas’ food, or otherwise bored enough to help Thomas clean the gutters or wipe down the windows, or any number of tasks Thomas sets him to do in exchange for a meal. Sometimes, Thomas runs line with him in a bored unaffected tone which results in Adam losing it in laughing fits, getting the names of characters wrong; other times Thomas goes about his day weeding the garden while Adam watches quietly from a deck chair that he’d dragged all the way from his own yard, arms folded behind his head so that the dark hair that furred his underarms showed, as well as the tan line that bisected his arms in two separate shades. “Busy as a bee as always,” he’d say, Or: “Is there something you don’t know how to do?” when stealing pork cutlets Thomas has only just finished frying on a tray. 

Thomas would prepare cucumber sandwiches with hardboiled eggs in preparation of Adam’s visits the night before, and on days he didn’t materialize ate them in the living room by himself, giving himself a stomachache. He tells himself it’s just something to do: he didn’t care whether Adam showed up or not. The more he tells himself this, the more he believes it, and it helps him sleep better at night.

Before him, Thomas’ days passed arbitrarily and he spent his afternoons reading his uncle’s books in the den, finding broken things in the house to fix, or else unearthing old boxes in the attic filled with bits of broken crockery and dusty photo albums. He’d sleep when he was tired, but got up precisely on the dot to tend to his garden, starting with the flowerbeds and working his way up to the apple tree, which has yet to bloom with fruit. 

The tedium can drive a man crazy in tiny tiny increments, but then there’s Adam who waltzes in without warning in his raggedy shorts and shirts with the sleeves sawed off with the box cutter, showing off the definition of his arms, and suddenly everything is thrown into chaos. It’s almost a reprieve and gives Thomas something to look forward to, a spark of _excitement_ in the humdrum of his new life. 

Often, Adam gives notice of his visits by yelling loudly across the lot, usually with a case of beer in hand when he’s in a particular mood. Today, he’s helping Thomas build a washing line in the back yard after Thomas’ dryer broke and he can’t be arsed to get himself a new one after a quick glance of his bank account. It takes two hours, several yards of wire, and two wooden posts but finally they get the job done with minimal injury and little complaint from Adam. 

Adam cracks open a beer to celebrate, sloshing some all over his shirt, laughing and slapping Thomas companionably on the back. He hasn’t shaved in quite awhile and has started to sport the whiskery beginnings of a goatee. It doesn’t look all that bad even at close range. He’d spent the entire time under the sun while Thomas handed him tools and read from a printout of instructions Thomas had downloaded off a DIY website, eventually taking off his shirt to wipe sweat off his upper torso and distracting Thomas intermittently. Now he’s still sans a shirt, and Thomas can’t help but notice the taper of his waist, the width of his shoulders. 

“We make a good team,” Adam declares, toasting Thomas’ mug of tea. 

Thomas tilts his head, surveying the final product. The left post has already started to list sideways. He doesn’t think the wire should be drooping so close to the ground. “Do we?” he says.

Adam grins, knocking their shoulders together. “Don’t be cute. If the thing fucks up just give me a call and I’ll fix it for you for free.”

“How magnanimous.”

“Hey,” Adam says, looking serious all of a sudden, and holding up a finger. He peers into Thomas’ face, blinking only once, his gaze never wavering. “We’re friends, right? You can come to me for anything.” 

Adam smiles, then takes a long pull from his bottle before letting out a loud beer-scented burp, but already Thomas is thinking: _shit, shit, shit._

*

Shit indeed. A week passes, and then another and Adam throws a party of some sort that warrants an ice cream truck. Thomas isn’t invited. Or he would’ve been had he answered the door to Adam’s knocking. He peers out the window, counting the cars parked in Adam’s driveway. There’s a dozen of them, each one fancier than the last. The lights in the living room are on all night even after Thomas elects to go to bed later than usual. When he wakes for a nightcap a little close to midnight, he finds that the lights are still on, that he can hear music playing even from across the lot. Then there’s a thud and a screech coming from his garden, followed by an emphatic but familiar: “Fuck!”

He doesn’t need to turn on the lights to know who it is sprawled on the ground covered in rat traps, shaking his hand out in quick movements. Thomas turns the lights on anyway for his own benefit, tiptoeing across the grass. 

“Adam? What on earth are you doing down there?”

“I think I found your traps,” Adam says before groaning, his head thumping back against the ground. He’s wearing a tux, or the remnants of one, the tie is missing as is the jacket, though he’s managed to keep the cummerbund on, the starched dress shirt open to reveal a black undershirt underneath. “Jesus, why do you have so many? Do you have an infestation or something? I think one nearly snapped my toe in half.”

“They’re meant for the rabbits,” Thomas tells him, rolling his eyes. 

“Right, of course they are.” Adam grunts, attempting to sit up, before halfway deciding he can’t be arsed and remaining lying on the grass. He kicks valiantly at a trap, pitching one over the fence and it makes a soft clipping noise as it lands on the grass on the other side.“Shit. It’s nice down here. I can see the stars.” He lifts a hand, twirling his fingers, reaching out for something invisible like a complete lunatic. “Oh, hey. There’s an even prettier sight,” he grins when Thomas overtakes his vision. He makes to cup Thomas’ cheek but Thomas evades him smoothly, stilling his wrist until he drops his hand back to his side. 

“Don’t you have a party to be at?” Thomas says. 

Adam shrugs one shoulder. He doesn’t seem to care at all; then again when has he cared about anything. The lights are still on at his house; it’s any wonder no one’s come looking for him. “Fuck the party,” he intones. Thomas peers down at him, amused. He squats next to him, noting the slope of his nose, the little divot under his chin, the avalanche of hair shrouding part of his face.

“Jesus, I can feel you practically undressing me.”

Then Thomas notices Adam’s eyes, flushed even in the dark, and the definitive stink wafting from his clothes. He recognizes that smell from university. “Oh god, are you high right now?”

“Maybe,” says Adam vaguely, waving him off when Thomas tries pulling him upright by the collar to sniff at his neck. He fails, of course; Adam is heavy and several weight classes above him. “Maybe being high is just a state of mind. I feel high right now, from looking at you. Shit, you’re — and I don’t say this lightly about any another guy because guys are assholes and smell funny but. Jesus. You’re beautiful. That mouth, that face. You have a very expressive face. When you’re pissed you do this little thing, like a chipmunk face, it’s so cute. And you have such beautiful hands. You should be a hand model; I know a guy. You shouldn’t be out here gardening.”

“Thanks for the career advice,” Thomas snorts, “What the f— are you smoking?”

Adam blinks at him, halfway to lighting his cigarette with a lighter he’d conjured seemingly out of nowhere. He has big hands. He has big… everything, Thomas is starting to realize. His nose, his personality. The breadth of his shoulders which make people want to lean on them. People like Thomas who in his weaker moments wonder what it’s like to be so well-adjusted and grounded in a social network that he is constantly invited to superfluous events like parties.

“These aren’t cigarettes,” Adam smiles. Then he extends a hand toward Thomas, the same one holding the not-cigarette and tilts his head. “Thomas,” he says.

*

“I’m leaving,” Adam says. “Tomorrow. I’m going back to New York.”

“Right,” Thomas says, after a beat. He blinks up at the sky and Adam is right: he _can_ see the stars, blinking down at him like pairs of the most expensive sets of earrings on display at the shop, always out of reach. He wonders why it’s taken him so long to notice. Then again, that’s hardly a surprise. He always misses things, even when they’re right under his nose, sometimes too absorbed in his little obsessions that he doesn’t know what’s hit him until it’s too late. He turns his head, his cheek scratching the grass. The high has moved from his brain down to the rest of his body, making him hyper-aware of every part of it: his fingertips, his toes, his shoulders where they rub the soft ground. He’ll need to wash this robe to get the dirt out, the smell of wet grass. 

In his periphery, Thomas can see the soft expression marring Adam’s face, how he’s got both arms clasped behind his head. 

“I can’t believe you took hits off that roach like a fucking pro,” Adam says conversationally. His eyes are closed.

Thomas swats him on the stomach and Adam starts to laugh. “ _Shut up._ ”

But Adam keeps laughing anyway, his body shaking from the force of it, tiny little tremors. “My apologies. Obviously you aren’t high enough to just fucking relax for a second. _Jesus_. Can you just like, fucking chill? Come on, Thomas. Live a little. You spend all day in that house, doing what? You hardly ever leave. You don’t answer the door when I call you. You hide from me when I ask — quite nicely — whether you want to come out and play—”

“This isn’t a joke,” Thomas says, interrupting him. “I’m not a joke.” _This is my life_ , Thomas thinks viciously. And: _it’s all I’ve got left._ It’s not some pitiful sketch that Adam has made it out to be because sure, his life isn’t brimming with joy all the time, but he’s got nothing to complain about. He isn’t sad or lonely or anything. Adam is not some sort of white knight come to save him from his problems; he doesn’t need saving. 

Belatedly, Thomas wonders how he can be talking about two different things all at once. 

Adam looks at him, eyes soft in the dark as his laughter subsides and he reaches across the distance and touches Thomas’ arm softly. “No,” he says, for once completely serious. “No, you’re not.”

Thomas doesn’t look away from him. “You’re an arsehole,” he says. He means it too: Adam is an arsehole, walking into his life without warning and then walking out quite the same way. Thomas should be used to it by now; everyone he’d ever loved in his life has left him in the same fashion. First his dad, wherever he is right now, alive or dead, then his mum, then his uncle. And _then_ :

“I know,” Adam declares, smiling, watching Thomas carefully. He squeezes Thomas’ hand. “Thomas,” he says, quickly, “If I kissed you right now would you hit me?”

Thomas almost laughs. It’s been a crazy night. Beautiful but surreal. He stares at Adam’s hand, at his fingers curled around his wrist. His heart starts to race.

“Depends what kind of kiss it is,” Thomas says.

“Lots of tongue and teeth. I may even throw in a grope or two,” Adam says, irreverent as usual.

Thomas just continues to stare at him, but Adam doesn’t seem to be deterred, crawling over to slide a leg over Thomas’ hipbone and brace himself against the ground. He smells like aftershave; he also smells like pot but a heady feeling is overtaking Thomas now, making him focus on more pressing details, like how the ends of Adam’s hair are touching his face. Thomas has never seen his eyes this close before; the whites are slightly bloodshot but otherwise he seems pretty sober. He can feel where their bodies are touching, points of contact that make the rest of his body feel alive.

Adam hovers for a moment, breathing along with Thomas, one, two, three, four, five breaths, before kissing him on the last lilting exhale. He touches Thomas’ chin, tipping up his face. Despite appearances, Adam kisses more softly than Thomas could have ever imagined, and by instinct, his hands starts spidering up Adam’s chest, tugging him forward by the sides of his shirt. Their foreheads press together when Adam pulls away at the last breath, making Thomas’ vision swim and his head feel fuzzier than if it had been filled with nothing but gauze. And then Adam kisses him again, without warning, swallowing his sigh and pressing his nose to Thomas’ cheek, breathing in the scent of him, his chest shakingin a series of exhales. 

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Adam says.

“Were you expecting the worst?”

Thomas feels Adam smiling against his cheek, the tip of his nose moving down his throat, the back of his ear. “To be honest,” he murmurs, “I never know with you. I was expecting you to tell me to fuck off. I hadn’t planned this far ahead. I guess I’ll just keep kissing you now until you get tired of it, or realize what a bad decision this whole thing was. There’s nothing better to do and you look like you need kissing anyway, and badly, and by someone who knows how.”

Thomas rolls his eyes. “Keep your trousers on Clark Gable.”

“I’m amazed you got the reference,” Adam says.

“I know some things,” Thomas relents. “Well, a few things. I don’t live under a rock, you know.”

“Yeah,” Adam grins. He grins again, widely this time, and when he says Thomas’ name, Thomas turns his head, and is wholly unprepared for Adam kissing him again. 

“Yeah, I’m beginning to see that,” Adam says.

*

Thomas doesn’t make it a habit to sleep with neighbours but he’s willing to make Adam an exemption. Besides, he tells himself, he’s leaving the next day anyway, and it’s likely he won’t be seeing him again any time soon. Any shame he’ll feel after will dissipate over time. 

Adam sits on the bed, leaning back on his palms, content to just watch as Thomas stands there by the door hemming and hawing. He’s finished his shower and now feels like an idiot, standing there naked in nothing more than a bathrobe tied loosely around the waist while Adam is still in his dress shirt and trousers. Adam pats his knee, and Thomas’ cheek twitches, but he seats himself in Adam’s lap anyway after some awkward maneuvering. He wonders if he used too much product on his hair; the ends are damp, he'd towel-dried them very quickly in his haste to get himself ready. It’s a pre-sex ritual. He wants to smell good before sex. 

“Hi,” Adam says, his nose bumping Thomas’ cheek. “You all right? You seem tense.”

“Let’s have sex,” Thomas says, eloquent as ever. Best to just get it out of the way, he thinks.

“Right,” Adam nods. “Right, right. Let’s do it. Yeah, fuck.” He doesn’t seem to know where to put his hands until he settles them around Thomas’ hips at Thomas’ prompting. 

They kiss, and Thomas sighs, relaxing enough to let Adam tug his robe free and reach between the folds. His touch his hot, slick when he licks his palm with deliberate swipes of his tongue, and then that hand is on Thomas again, jerking him roughly, Adam kissing him with enough force to bruise and biting every one of his sighs from his mouth. 

“Shit,” Adam hisses, in between kisses. “Shit, you’re so hot.”

Thomas laughs. He’s not hot. “I believe you mean yourself,” he says. 

“Nah,” Adam breathes, before rolling them over on the bed, leaning over Thomas. He shucks off his clothes in rapid succession, devours Thomas’ mouth once he’s down to his underwear which he shimmies out of with a grunt, pitching it over his shoulder across the room where it hits the wall before descending in a sad little heap on the floor. Adam presses his hips forward so Thomas could feel how hard he is, and Thomas lifts his own hips in answer, licking his lips and groaning, pressing his face to Adam’s neck. He can feel the minute tremors of his own body, the hot exhale against his face when Adam aligns their cocks and thrusts forward.

Adam is big, of course, but that’s to be expected. Thomas wraps his arms around his shoulders, feeling the bumps of his spine with his fingertips, accepting Adam’s open-mouthed kiss as he lurches up to press against him. “We could’ve been doing this weeks ago,” Adam grunts. “I could be fucking you right now but you insisted on being — shit, on being fussy, like we were in some Jane Austen novel. Didn’t you wonder why I kept coming over without my shirt on? My assistant thinks I’m crazy. But shit, baby, look at you. How can anyone not —-” and then he comes, with a quiet groan, crumpling onto Thomas like a deck of cards, squashing him flat against the bed.

Adam finishes him off with his mouth, enthusiastic about it and sloppy, swallowing down his come when Thomas shudders and twitches, pressing a hand against Thomas’ thigh. It leaves Thomas feeling rightfully unmoored, especially after he watches Adam clean the both of them off with a discarded shirt, his cock hanging freely, almost offensive in size even it its softened state. Afterwards, they lie side by side in the dark, Thomas fighting every impulse to run, retreat, pull himself back from this unfamiliar precipice that may be the single worst decision in his life. His body is thrumming with delayed adrenaline rush. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, curls his hands and then uncurls them. 

When Adam gathers him against his chest and loops an arm around Thomas’ waist, trapping him against body, Thomas lets out a surprised huff. 

“Stop it,” Adam mumbles into Thomas’ neck. He smells like sex.

“Stop what?”

“You’re thinking, I can hear you,” Adam says without opening his eyes. 

“That’s ridiculous. You can’t hear my thoughts,” Thomas snorts.

“The fame thing,” Adam says, talking over Thomas. “It’s not real, you know. That’s what people forget. But things like this, people, _you_ , that’s what’s real, that’s what really matters.”

Thomas blinks at him. He hates it when people are cryptic, even more so when the people in question are handsome men. As it stands, this is Adam they’re talking about so it’s probably just the residual effect of the pot.

“What,” Thomas says. 

“Forget it,” Adam sighs, kissing him on the nose, reaching over the bed to pull the covers over them. He sounds like he’s smiling at least, amused by Thomas’ confusion. “Just go to sleep, Thomas.”

Against his wishes, and because Adam makes a very good pillow, Thomas does, peacefully for the first time in a long time.

*

Thomas gets out of bed every morning at precisely eight o’clock. Doesn’t matter where he is or how much sleep he's had the night before. The same is true this morning though this time he has to dislodge himself from Adam’s unnaturally strong grip which takes all of five minutes because Adam keeps tugging him back under the covers, grabbing him by the arm, then by the ankle whenever he manages to get so much as a toe out of bed. In the end, he’s able to shove Adam bodily off his person long enough to put a robe on and sprint downstairs, where he’s finally free of his clutches and can put the kettle on for tea.

Thomas gets started on making breakfast, pulling things out of cabinets and raiding the fridge for eggs. He almost doesn’t hear the bell over the shrill whistling of the teakettle, and hurries to the door before thinking the better of it or checking the peephole.

“Yes, hello, can I help you—”

Immediately he’s overtaken by the blinding flash of a camera, then another, and another. He stands there, feeling dazed, completely taken by surprise by the number of strangers staked out in his front yard, all of them wanting a picture of him in his tatty bathrobe with his nipples showing. There’s half a dozen of them and they all ask him about Adam, whether or not they’re dating, what Thomas thinks about Adam’s new movie that had been a critical flop but a box office success. Thomas slams the door and locks it. He hasn’t even seen any of Adam’s movies, let alone heard of him until he moved in next door. He hadn’t known he was famous. He hadn’t known, well, _anything_.

The shock must show on his face because Adam, dressed in nothing more than a pair of boxers as he descends the stairs, asks, “What’s wrong? You all right?”  He cups Thomas’ cheek, pressing a kiss to his chin, then closes Thomas’ robe as if the sight of his skinny chest offends him. “Was someone at the door?”

“No—no don’t answer the door,” Thomas says faintly. 

Too late: Adam’s already thrown it wide open, and Thomas’ life is never the same again, after.

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Adam! Adam! Can you tell us more about why you decided to bring a guy as your date to the Oscars?”

“Because it’s 2018 and I really like this guy?”

“Can you tells us more about Tom?”

“His name is Thomas, next question.”

“What exactly made you like him?”

“Well, uh,” Adam says, “He’s really funny and stuff? And very smart?”

Once the press conference is over, Adam returns to the hotel, to throw himself dramatically on the bed and complain about his feet killing him. Thomas peers at him through his reading glasses, looking owlish and sympathetic in his checkered Burberry pyjamas. He’s wearing a hair clip to keep his hair out of his face and his cheeks look flushed and moisturized; his skin smells like apricots, the expensive lotion Adam had bought him en route to a photoshoot in Paris. 

“So you like that I’m funny and ‘stuff’?” Thomas says conversationally. 

“You saw all that, huh?” Adam says, sheepish. He scratches his stomach, kicking off his shoes, crawling across the covers to wrap himself around Thomas’ middle. His body is soft in places, but Adam digs it. Really digs it. He likes being able to fall asleep on top of Thomas comfortably, who always smells nice and hides the fact he is a ginger by dyeing his roots every other month. One day, he's going to succumb to hair loss; Adam really needs to talk to him about that; he's stressed enough as it is dealing with those rabbits. He watches Thomas page through his book, the delicate movement of his hands almost hypnotic and then says,  “You know, that’s only part of why I like you.”

If he sounds earnest, that’s because he’s being honest, and he’s exhausted enough not to care that he sounds like a complete idiot. “I like your face a lot, and your hands, and the way you look when you’re knelt on all fours.”

Thomas pretends not to be entirely affected though he’s already set his book aside: _The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-scale Organic Farming._ Because he’s a nerd. A cute nerd but a nerd nonetheless who leaves the previous evening's teabag on a saucer by the sink to use the next morning, who does this weird shiver-dance thing when Adam fucks him and he comes from it, and has a worrying if in-depth knowledge of the mechanics of classic toys.

“Yes?” Thomas intones. “I’ll ignore the last part but do go on.”

He’s so into himself, it's cute. “All right. So: I like the way you throw your head back when I make you laugh, like, once a month,” Adam tells him, “Because nothing ever gets past you, does it? You’re so hard to penetrate. Well, that’s not true at all. I know that for a fact.”

Thomas rolls his eyes at him, elbowing him in the ribs. Adam only grins, rubbing the offending elbow, then the other. “I like that you make me work hard to impress you. Nothing worth it should ever come easy.”

“So you’re saying I’m difficult?” Thomas says, raising his eyebrows. 

“I’m saying,” Adam says slowly, sliding up to curl his hands around his shoulders. “That you’re worth it.”

Thomas looks at him, before tilting his head to the side. Adam knows that look. He’s seen it a number of times before, usually preceding a very satisfying blowjob. It also means he’s said something sweet without realizing it.

“Good answer,” Thomas says, with a faint little smile, just as Adam thinks to himself _jesus_ , he's gorgeous. That face, that mouth. He wrinkles his nose at the fingers covering his lips, presses Thomas’ hand against his cheek instead. “Now will you let me kiss you, kid?”

“Sure,” Thomas says, leaning back against the pillows to make himself more comfortable. He makes a vague gesture with his hand. “Have at it then and kiss me.”

Adam laughs and does exactly that, and then some.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
